PeeWees: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (week 1)

Get ready for a whirlwind of PeeWee posts - I'm almost two months behind!

From PeeWee mom Shaunel (Poppy was out of town)...

We had a super fun day with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. There are so many possibilities to explore with letters, coconut trees, and balance.

Playtime started off with letter magnets, a letter puzzle, and a letter chart.  Jackson and Henry worked on the letter chart, while Bodie carefully put each magnet onto the whiteboard. Sometimes he would group the letters that were the same, but his most important goal seemed to be putting them in order. I quickly saw (as expected) that capital letters were not a problem. Lower case were much harder, but Bodie seemed to be fairly ontop of those as well as sound. Letter order was a lot more difficult than I thought. Jackson and Henry were working on putting the letters they found into the correct pocket on the letter chart. This was tricky even when we sang and pointed to the ABC's, so we'll be working more on that next week. At the end of playtime, we all did the letter puzzle together, with each boy putting one letter at a time onto the puzzle with a little chant and cheer to go along. Super cute!

Circle time included the standup song that they still love, singing the ABC's, and then singing them again, while placing letter cards on the floor while we sang it. We then counted the letter cards. That 14 and 15 are still tricky for Henry and Jackson, but Bodie's going to pull them along. The 20's seemed to be no problem :)

We read the story twice. Second time while keeping a beat. They did a great job.

After potty and handwashing, we had our snacks of baby carrots and bananas formed into each boys' initial (all letters are just forms of lines, circles and semi-circles). Then, we had TJ's letter cookies for dessert. I had to put a limit on those--for the boys and myself! They're so yummy.

We proceeded to practice writing our letters at stations in the living room. I made a stencil of a B, H and J--both upper and lower case. They each got to practice writing their letter on the chalk board, magna doodle and whiteboard. Jackson had done something similar before, and I was surpised by how experienced he was at this. All the boys got significantly better by their last station. We practiced freehanding this on the back of our art. Each boy used the white crayon to write their initial on the back of their paper. They all needed some help, but I was thrilled with how legible it turned out.

Art consisted of making a coconut tree and sticking foam sticker letters (compliments of the pee wee box), all over the tree. I love how different their trees and the placement of their letters were. Bodie's all landed on top of each other, while Henry's were nicely spaced out up and down the trunk. They all did a great job of taking the backing off their stickers--definitely a good developmental activity.

We had a dance break to Sesame Street's Hip Hop ABC. Turned more into a couch jump-a-thon.

We then talked a bit about why the letters all fell out of the coconut tree. I had put a foam letter on the monkeys from our barrel of monkeys. They took turns hanging a monkey off one side of a hanger, and we watched how the hanger started to tip more and more as we put more monkeys on. When we put the last one one, we said, "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom." We then explored putting them all over the hanger and how the hanger didn't tilt like it had earlier.

I nixed the next activity for time sake, and we read the story one more time. Since we had a little bit of time left, we attempted the alphabet chart with both lower and upper case letters. They were a bit worn out of such activities by this point, so we did our goodbye chant, and rocked out to ABC Rock until parent came.

Fun times, can't wait for next week :)
Shaunel

PeeWees: Bailey Goes Camping (week 2)

 Welcome back for Week 2 of Bailey Goes Camping, sadly the last time I will teach PeeWees.  I'm first in the rotation, so I'm also first to be last.

Arrival:  We started this week with more art - coloring bunny ears for our headbands.  I thought we would wear them on our bear hunt, but they didn't really want to.  They were still fun to color.  Some took it pretty seriously and colored both sides.  I also asked them to write the first letter of their name somewhere on an ear to identify them.  This had mixed success.  Poppy's "P" looks like a lollipop, for example.  But it's a start.   

 After they colored, I stapled the headbands together and added the ears, one kid at a time.  While I finished, the kids broke into a spontaneous bunny parade.  Any excuse to run the circle track!

Circle Time:  "Stand Up" song, alphabet, finding our name letters, then counting.  I laid out the camping bingo pictures from last time, and we reviewed what they each were.  Most are obvious and easy, like tent, sleeping bag, backpack, etc.  I called the "kabob" picture "hot dog."  There were a few I had to explain, like stake, but they recognized most of them.  "Mushroom" was a favorite.  We counted one way and then the other - they really only get hung up around 17 now, especially if someone is a little ahead.  

Activity 1:  We did things a little out of order this week.  Normally at this point we read our main book.  But we couldn't do that yet because we needed our bears for that, and our bears were currently hidden out in the yard.  So, bear hunt first.  We gathered in the tent and read We're Going on a Bear Hunt. One of the things Bailey's brother and sister tell them they do camping is hunt for bears, so this was an obvious choice.  But I also wanted to do this book because they'd already done it with Corduroy so it would be a fun review/connection.

 Then we gathered up our binoculars that we painted last time, and headed out into the yard.  Bodie was particularly worried about the bear hunt, and wanted to make sure we weren't really going to a real forest to hunt real bears.  I promised him we would stay in the yard and it wouldn't be scary. 

 The binoculars were a hit. 

I'd "hidden" them pretty well in sight, but they still needed a little help finding them.  Everyone got to find one; it was pretty fun.  It's amazing how those nocs really do seem to bring things closer. 

Reading:  Back into the tent we went, and put our bears in our prop bags.  Then everyone took out their flashlights and shined them on their chins, remembering from the ghost story last time.  We read through Bailey again, taking out our items as they appeared in the story.  So fun.

 Snack:  Another thing Bailey learned you do camping is eat hot dogs, so we had turkey hot dogs and carrots for snack, outside because it was a perfect day for camping!  I gave them each a half dog in half bun but they all took out the dogs and ate them and the bun separately.  Carrots had mixed reception.  I taught them the phrase "al fresco."

Activity 2:  Since we were already outside, we played another round of Camping Bingo with marshmallows - they are experts at this now.  Until someone knocks the table and all the marshmallows slide around.

Activity 3:  Reading the ghost story last time was pretty popular, so by request we went back in the tent with flashlights and read the "silly" ghost story again.

Activity 4:  According to Bailey, the very best thing about camping is roasting marshmallows, so we had to do it!  I busted out my crème brûlée torch and showed them what roasting marshmallows is all about.  Reactions ranged from surprised to horrified.  Poppy and Henry were the only ones that would try them.  Jackson and Bodie politely requested to just have "plain marshmallows."  I may have also eaten one or two or three.  They are irresistable!

Closing:  The day was too perfect; there was no point in going inside.  So I brought out some sidewalk chalk and let them doodle on the back walk until parents arrived.  Things fell apart a little at this point; Poppy had an accident, my neighbor came out to chat, Henry got hurt, etc.  The end there was harried but the rest of the day was wonderfully perfect!  I hope everyone was worn out enough to blissfully fall asleep under the stars that night!

PeeWees: Baily Goes Camping (week 1)

Bailey Goes Camping by Kevin Henkes is one of my very favorite children's books in our whole library.  There's something about the rhythm plus the parenting plus the symmetry plus the illustrations that almost makes me swoon with literary perfection.  Perhaps I exaggerate.  But I really love it.

Synopsis:  Bruce and Betty are Bunny Scouts, so they are going camping.  Little brother Bailey is too little to go, but he wishes he could.  Bruce and Betty try to console him by telling him it's not that great.  "All we do is eat hot dogs and live in a tent and go swimming and fishing and hunt for bears and tell ghost stories and fall asleep under the stars.  And best of all, roast marshmallows."  (A PeeWee lesson plan practically writes itself off this list.)  After they leave, Mama and Papa try to distract Bailey, but all he wants to do is those camping things.  So Mama says, "You can do all those things right here."  And they proceed to do them at home, ending with roasting marshmallows at the stove burner and falling asleep under a star-covered quilt  by the open window with stars in the sky.

When I told Hazel and Ginger yesterday we were doing this book, they wanted to help, so they made "Bailey Goes Camping" banners to welcome the PeeWees.

Arrival:  We started the day with some painting.  We painted cardboard tubes that, once dry, we will make into binoculars for our bear hunt next time.

 

While they painted, I played some bluegrass background music.  I told them it was called "bluegrass" or "mountain" music, and was distinguishable by its quick fiddle (a special way to play violin) and sometimes banjo, like a round guitar.

Circle Time:  We sang our welcome song, and reviewed the alphabet and the letters in our names.   For counting, I had 20 pictures of camping things that we laid out, named, and briefly discussed.  Things like hiking boots, campfire, mosquitoes, and pocket knife.  Got the pictures from here. 

Then for reading the book, we went out back into the tent Ed had set up for us.

 

Our carpet squares were already in there, along with prop bags similar to the ones we had with Harry.  Everyone got their bag, and we pulled things out one at a time to see what we had - a plate, a cookie cutter, a bear, sunglasses, etc.  Then we put everything back on our bags and read the story.  Almost every page had a corresponding item, so we paused to take that out and see how it related to the story before going on.

 After reading Bailey through one time, it was back into the house to wash hands and have snack.

Snack:  One thing Bailey does is go fishing in his bathtub, so our snack had a "Gone Fishin'" theme.  A "pond" of goldfish, with a fishing rod made of pretzel stick and string licorice, with a gummy worm tied on the end.  It also helped that everyone likes goldfish and I remembered what a hit gummy worms were when we did Grumpy Bird.

Art:  For art, we made paper collage campfires.  Yesterday the girls helped me tear/cut up red, orange, and yellow cellophane, tissue paper, and construction paper.  I drizzled glue all over black paper, and the PeeWees stuck the paper pieces on.  At the end, we glued some twigs along the bottom.  These will probably take awhile to dry.  Many of the kids didn't like having sticky gluey fingers, but since this was the activity, they didn't have any choice, and pushed through.

 

  
Activity 1:  Ghost Stories.  One of the things you do when camping, is tell ghost stories.  At home, there is a picture of Bailey on his Dad's lap, and Papa and Mama with scared looks on their faces as Bailey spins them a tale.  I wanted to bring in this concept, without (hopefully) actually scaring our children.  We went back in the tent, and with the flashlights from our prop bags, I showed them how to turn them on and shine them up from the chin to look "scary."  Then, while we all held our flashlights this way, I read them a 2-page story called "Never Kick a Ghost."  It was pretty benign, so hopefully no one will be really scared.  We just were supposed to pretend to be scared, but really it was just silly.  Did it work?

Selfie

 Afterward they made their own game of jumping to see who could touch the tip top of the tent ceiling.

Activity 2: Camping Bingo.  Back inside, we used the picture cards we had counted earlier, and of course some marshmallows for markers, to play Bingo.  This is at least the third time they've done bingo, and they've really gotten the hang of it.

Activity 3:  Marshmallow Stacking.  Next I brought out a tray of large marshmallows, and we tried to see how high we could stack them before toppling over.  Pretty hard to get more than three.  Short-lived activity.

Re-read:  Back out in the tent, we re-read the book, but this time took our Camping Bingo cards with us to see how many of those things we could find in the story.

Activity 4:  We had time for one more marshmallow activity, so I put them in two teams.  Each team got a bucket of marshmallows, an ice tray, and two pairs of tongs.  Anyone who's played at my house knows I love to do this activity with pompoms.  Each team had to pick up marshmallows with the tongs and put one marshmallow in each section of the ice tray.

Activity 5:  Closing/water table.  We quickly did our goodbye song, then outside to play in the water table.  We put fish in the water, but I didn't have enough fishing poles, so we did mostly watering cans and cups - dump and fill stuff.  I tried to do this at the very end so they wouldn't get too wet, but Poppy still managed to completely soak herself.  Super awesome PeeWee day!